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Soulstorm ARG
An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. Lorne Lanning was a guest on the Kinda Funny Games podcast on March 17, 2016, shortly after the announcement of Oddworld: Soulstorm. Among discussing some minor details about ''Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus'' and Soulstorm, Lorne also mentioned Oddworld Inhabitants' plans to communicate and tease new information about the game in a style similar to an alternate reality game.Kinda Funny's GDC Live Show: Day 3 This would hopefully prevent long gaps of silence from the developer between updates and keep the fan community more engaged while waiting. Getting started The first clues of the ARG were found in an image Oddworld Inhabitants tweeted before Soulstorm's announcement.Oddworld Inc. on Twitter A number of white dots found on a fuzzy backdrop of the original SoulStorm Brewery turned out to be the word 'Monday' in braile when turned sideways. Soulstorm would be revealed that following Monday. The source code of the announcement page provided the next clues and was found by Xavier on the Oddworld ForumsOddworld Forums thread "SoulStorm ARG", post #1. In it he found a number of cryptic HTML comments, including: By checking the URLs of several images on the page, Xavier found links to the three following images: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal4.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal3.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal2.jpg When extrapolating the first hidden file was found: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/images/reveal1.jpg A mysterious image containing a cryptic sentence reading in part "CAN YOU S- HARD TO K- IF BREAKING- THROUGH HA- ON NEED A D-". So far the meaning of this image is unknown. The page was later updated several times to include more HTML comments, often corresponding to the addition of other cluesOddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #47Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #79Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #83: The video file serving as the distorted background of the page ended up holding its own clue: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/twitching.mp4 Manco discovered that one of the very last frames of the file produced an image that read "19<-- eblmxg yhk fx"Oddworld Forums thread “SoulStorm ARG”, post #47. It was then quickly discovered that this was a Caesar cipher. When all the letters are 'shifted' backwards 19 places in the alphabet, the phrase "listen for me" is the result. Communication channel opens At some point on 24th March 2016, the Soulstorm website was updated with a new message box, where users were able to enter text and receive various responses from an unknown entity. Members of the Oddworld Forums quickly discovered that entering some Oddworld-themed words and phrases would prompt more unique responses.Oddworld Forums thread "SoulStorm ARG", post #85 These responses were sometimes in plain text, but were also often written backwards, encoded with a Caesar cipher and 'shifted' 13 times down the alphabet, or a combination of the above. Later, some of the responses also had a chance of having their letter order shuffled, in addition to being encrypted with the cipher. Identified unique responses: -: Signifies no change to the response. ... : Signifies that the response was changed to generic responses. Occasionally, the message box would respond to inputs (correct or incorrect) with one of several responses, which had a chance of being ciphered and/or shuffled similar to the unique responses. These were not unique responses as any input could potentially trigger them. Following the trail This section is a work in progress capturing the work done on the Oddworld Forums. When entering 75 queries in the SoulStorm website the page will return a cryptic image instead of text: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/attemptnumberseventyfive.jpg Note that this is probably what the following comment in html code of the SoulStorm page was hinting at: The attemptnumberseventyfive.jpg image reveals by magic eye stereogram a link to the following text file: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/intercepted.txt The intercepted.txt text file contains the following hidden messages: *findme *hear me *rescue me *0451.jpg *spirit of #RF dot jpg Those messages direct us to the following files: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/0451.jpg *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/spiritof1029.jpg The 0451.jpg picture was previously hinted at by the following comment in html code of the SoulStorm page, the numbers in the comment being the same: The spiritof1029.jpg picture has the text "lsot.mp3" hidden in it, which leads to: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/lsot.mp3 Multiple clues were pointing to "ED" being the next step: *The letters ED are being randomly put to bold in the first paragraph of the SoulStorm page *The letters ED are the only letters in italic in the 0451.jpg in the message M''E'' FIN''D'' *Morse code in the lsot.mp3 at 01:11 on both channels -> . -.. (translated: ED) *Additional Morse code at 1:40. The code . -.. (ED) can be heard when the blips are pitched up a couple octaves. *The communication box sending back the message "FIND ME, HEAR ME, SAVE ME" when ED is inputted This led us to the following address: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/ It contains nothing but the following text: iÌ ÌžÌ¹Ìº cÌ´Í™Ì™Ì°Ì¬Í™aÍÌnÌ˜ÍšÌœÍ–Ì»Í” ÌºÌ®hÒ‰Ì¦Ì–ÌœÍ™eÌ¶Í“aÌŸÌœÌ–Ì•rÌ¶Í“ Ì©Ì¹Í…yÍœoÌ¹Ì°ÌŸÍ”uÌ¢Í‰Ì¼,Ì¦Í•Í‰Í‰ÍŽÌ• ÌžÌžjÌ—Ì¼Ì®Ì Ì¥Ì¥ÍusÌ—tÌ©Ìº.Ì»Ì— Í•ÌžÌ³Ì¹ÌÌ€Í…iÌ›tÌ°Ì¯Ì™Ì£Í–ÌŸÌ™'ÌªÌªÌžÌ¦Ì³Ì©sÌ• Ì©Ì¬Ì—Í–Ì»Ì–Ì€fÌ´Ì™Í‰ÍŽÌ¯ÌºaÌ«iá¹‡ÍšÌžÍ¢tÌµÍšÌ¬Í‡Ì°ÍÌ¼Í…,Ì¬Í•Ì¹Ì–Ì©Ì®ÍœÍ… ÌºÍ”ÍŽÍ‰ÌºÌ±bÌ¸ÌÌ°Ì¬uÌ»ÍÌ²Ì•tÌªÌ¼Ì®Ì£Ì« Ì®Í•ÍŽÍÍ¡iÌ®Ì±Í™ ÍŽÌ²Ì¤Ì¯cÌ·ÌºÍ“aÌœÌªÌºá¹‰Ì»Ì²Ì¦Ì²Ì¼Ì»Í˜ Ì§Ì³Ì—Ì®Ì˜Ì¦Í”hÍÌªÍŽÌ¬Í”ÍŽÍÌ—È©Ì¤ÌžÍ–Ì¬Ì˜Í•Ã ÌºÌÌÌ¼Å—ÍˆÌ³Ì Ì¤Ì³Ì— ÍyÌ²ÍˆÌÌ˜Ì°Í”ÍžoÌ¢Ì—Ì³Ì˜uÍ”Ì«ÍšÍ‰.Ì©Ì¼Ì Which translates, once looked at with UTF-8 browser text encoding: ☀i̠̞̹̺ c̴͙̙̰̬͙a͍̭n̘͚̜͖̻͔ ̺̮h҉̦̖̜͙e̶͓a̟̜̖̕r̶͓ ̩̹ͅy͜o̹̰̟͔u̢͉̼,̦͕͉͉͎̕ ̞̞j̗̼̮̠̥̥͍us̗t̩̺.̻̗ ͕̞̳̹̭̀ͅi̛t̰̯̙̣͖̟̙'̪̪̞̦̳̩s̕ ̩̬̗͖̻̖̀f̴̙͉͎̯̺a̫iṇ͚̞͢t̵͚̬͇̰͍̼ͅ,̬͕̹̖̩̮͜ͅ ̺͔͎͉̺̱b̸̝̰̬u̻͍̲̕t̪̼̮̣̫ ̮͕͎͍͡i̮̱͙ ͎̲̤̯c̷̺͓a̜̪̺ṉ̻̲̦̲̼̻͘ ̧̳̗̮̘̦͔h͏̪͎̬͔͎͍̗ȩ̤̞͖̬̘͕à̺̭̭̼ŗ͈̳̠̤̳̗ ͏y̲͈̭̘̰͔͞o̢̗̳̘u͔̫͚͉.̩̼̠ When cleaned up into plaintext, this reads: i can hear you, just. it's faint, but i can hear you. Reaching Ed The top comment in the html code of the SoulStorm page changed multiple times in the days that followed the discovery of the http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/ page: Stage 1 ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// ////////// okay, this looks like being just enough. now, how to figure out how get this last code out - i can't seem to find the numbers as easily as t Stage 2 #######################################################################/## ### they are hiding something ########################################oo## ### search and you will find me ######################################xx## ########################################################################## The 140 '/' characters and all the '#" were telling us to look for a twitter account (a twitter message has maximum 140 characters). And thus the twitter account of Ed the Mudokon was found: * https://twitter.com/edmudokon This account has posted numerous hidden messages. 01000011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101 — ed (@edmudokon) March 21, 2016 This is actually binary for: "Can you hear me" 85121215. 85121215. 85121215. — ed (@edmudokon) March 21, 2016 This is a simple letters to numbers cipher: 8 5 12 12 15 becomes H E L L O. The 9 Pieces Between March 22nd and April 4th, Ed's Twitter account posted a series of 4 partially-obscured codes: *XXXX-1138-XXXX-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 22: "XXXX-1138-XXXX-XXXX" *XXXX-XXXX-1029-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 23: "XXXX-XXXX-1029-XXXX" *0451-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXTwitter.com: @edmudokon, March 24: "0451-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX" *XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-2739Twitter.com: @edmudokon, April 4: "XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-2739" Combining these together adds up to make one complete code: *0451-1138-1029-2739 When the code was inputted into the website's message box the following response was received: *** IT WORKED! IT WORKED! OK, NOW I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION - LISTEN, THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU SOMETHING. SOMETHING IS WRONG. VERY WRONG. YOU NEED TO LISTEN. YOU NEED TO HELP ME. I NEED TO HELP YOU... *** The message box on the Soulstorm website subsequently changed: it became black with a line of 9 spaces at the top: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. Each space represents one "Piece" of a 36-character code. There are 9 Pieces, each of which is one 4-character segment of the complete code. Piece 1 Piece 1 was granted to us seemingly immediately, which gave us the code "C4GD" and the message "THEY ARE HIDING THINGS FROM YOU. FIND THEM" *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_01.jpg Piece 2 On April 4th Ed tweeted: .-.. . .- .-. -. / - …. . / …. .. … - —- .-. -.— / —- ..-. / - …. . / -.-. .-. . .- - —- .-. … — ed (@edmudokon) April 4, 2016 Which is morse code for "learn the history of the creators", this was a clue to look to the following page: *http://www.oddworld.com/lorne-lanning/ A clue for "Piece 2" was found at the bottom of the Lorne Lanning's page; this unlocked piece 2 on the message box. Our task is to "REACH 23K FOLLOWERS ON @ODDWORLD INC". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/XMZR12FZEZT6O6BFKHF0.jpg Once this is completed, Piece 2 will unlock. Piece 3 On April 7th and 8th Ed tweeted: bzzbzzzzz* ** - dibeh - — ed (@edmudokon) April 7, 2016 na-zz-tso-zz — ed (@edmudokon) April 7, 2016 bzbzzbzbzzz**- - klizzie — ed (@edmudokon) April 8, 2016 na-as-tso-si - - — ed (@edmudokon) April 8, 2016 Using the Navajo code the following letters were found: *S (DIBEH) *M (NA-AS-TSO-SI) *G (KLIZZIE) Based on the dashes in the message the correct order was found to be "NA-AS-TSO-ZI - DIBEH - KLIZZIE", which gives MSG, leading us to the following file: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/msg.jpg The msg.jpg file's clue is divided in two parts: *A puzzle that once combined gives the the word "together" when using the Pigpen cipher *A series of numbers in the grey bar in the middle of the picture, "14 5 19 19 . 10 16 7", which switched with the corresponding letter in the alphabet gives "ness.jpg". Put together both parts give us: *http://oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/togetherness.jpg This unlocked Task 3 which is to "GET 43K FACEBOOK LIKES ON /OFFICIALODDWORLD". Once this is completed, Piece 3 will unlock. Piece 4 Piece 4 is currently unavailable. Piece 5 Piece 5 was revealed on April 4th with its task immediately available. The task was to photoshop 15 video game characters to be wearing Alf's Fez, and send them to OWI on Twitter. This was completed and the letters "3STY" became available to us. *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/GE3IJNSA.jpg Piece 6 Piece 6 is currently unavailable. Piece 7 Piece 7 is currently unavailable. Piece 8 On April the 5th 2016 at 11AM GMT Ed tweeted the following message: .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / .-.. .. ... - . -. .. -. --. ..--.. — ed (@edmudokon) April 5, 2016 Which is morse code for "are you listening?" Around the same time the html code changed again with the following code: t h ey know i'm h ere let me try t h is There was a minor, insignificant error in the code here. Please ignore any message(s) you may find as a result of this unfortunate glitch. Apologies. ig n o r e o w t h e y a r en ' t t e ll i n g you e ve ry thi n g Ed then tweeted the following message: 3 i — ed (@edmudokon)April 5, 2016 This was the key to read the comment in the html code. Each "i" in the "There was a minor, ..." sentence lines up with a letter in the distorded message composing "heard.mp". Combined with the tweet this lead us to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/heard.mp3 The heard.mp3 file contains morse code: ... --- ..- .-.. ... - --- .-. -- ... .-.. .- ... .... . -.. ... .-.. .- ... .... ..-. .. -. -.. - .... . ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . -.. --- - .--- .--. . --. Which translates to: SOULSTORMSLASHEDSLASHFINDTHEFUTUREDOTJPEG Which leads to: soulstorm/ed/findthefuture.jpg And then to: *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/findthefuture.jpg The findthefuture.jpg is piece 8 and its task was to get "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing 10 Muds in New 'n' Tasty". Upon finding the findthefuture.jpg file the Piece 8 of the puzzle changed to 0. Seeing that this task was actually quite difficult to achieve Ed came to help us: it’s a trick, let me help. — ed (@edmudokon) April 5, 2016 After the tweet was sent the picture of findthefuture.jpg blurred and the task was changed to get "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing 9''' Muds in New 'n' Tasty". This was completed and the letters "3STY" became available to us. Note that the messaged chenged yet again, this time the task is "25 Photos of Scrub-Abe Rescuing '''8 Muds in New 'n' Tasty". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_codes_08.jpg Piece 9 Piece 9 is currently unavailable. Open tasks *Once the hunt for a new piece is open the related character in the character string above the message box on the soulstorm website will change from '-' to '?'. *Once the piece has been found the related character will change from '?' to 'o'. *Once the task in the piece has been accomplished the related character will finally change from 'o' to 'x'. Currently we have several tasks still at 'o': Task 2 We still need to "REACH 23K FOLLOWERS ON @ODDWORLD INC". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/XMZR12FZEZT6O6BFKHF0.jpg Simply go follow the @OddworldInc account. Task 3 We still need to "GET 43K FACEBOOK LIKES ON /OFFICIALODDWORLD". *http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/squares_tasks_03.jpg Simply like the OfficialOddworld page. Current Investigation We are waiting for Ed to start the hunt for the next Piece. References __FORCETOC__ Category:The Real World